Customer Reviews

Samba: The Making of Brazilian Carnival

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is a good book written by a journalist who consistently produces some of the most insightful work on Latin America in the U.S. print media. Writing from a journalist's perspective about her own experiences as a white Mexican living in Brazil it's a great read. I was captivated when I read it. Other reviewers are correct, there are better studis of all the subjects she covers, and as a Latin American historian, lusophile, and student of Capoeira I could find flaws to; here historical sections are simplistic, etc. But why bother? She did live there and join a Samba school, she freely admits her limitations, concerns, and desires, and she writes like a dream. That is hard to find and worth reading.

I'm not a musicologist and couldn't tell you if the music info here is 100% accurate. As someone who's lived in and studied Brazil for 11 years however, I found the author's descriptions of favela life to be very well done. There's information here I've never seen elsewhere. Her musicology may leave a lot to be desired, but to say her opinion on race and cultural issues in Brazil is flat-out wrong strikes me as the opinion of someone with a nativist axe to grind. Perhaps some readers originally thought this book's primary focus /was/ samba when they bought it. That is not the case: it's a well written amateur ethnology of favela life. Be forewarned. Read this book if you want a decent (if necessarily superficial) introduction to the life of the urban poor in modern Brazil. For samba, specifically, or a more advanced analysis, I suggest Hermano Vianna's Mystery of Samba or anyone of a number of academic works on Brazil, starting with Freyre's "Masters and Slaves" or Da Matta's "Carnivals, Rogues and Heroes."

Guillermoprieto is both a skilled writer and a serious scholar. That combination makes this erudite, and exceedingly detailed study of the black underclass in Brazilian society both readable and engaging. She employs an inductive approach, using the culture surrounding the Samba and Carnival in Rio as a base for exploring the status of blacks in Brazilian society and the many contradictions and ironies in light of their prevailing influence in all levels of Brazilian culture.

The story is fascinating and the author admirable, because in order to learn and effectively represent the culture of the Samba and black Brazilian society (which she pretty effectively demonstrates are in many ways largely synonymous) she not only joined a Samba club in order to participate in Carnival, but also moved into the favelas of Rio.

Guillermoprieto depicts the injustice of the blacks' fate in Brazil in a dispassionate, yet also very poignant and sympathetic manner. She allows the compelling facts to represent themselves without embellishing them with personal assessments, which makes her writing that much more powerful.

This is really a great book: a fascinating story about the complex organization and serious part of the Brazilian economy that the Samba and Carnival comprise, and a distinctive and holistic representation of black Brazilian society and the rest of that nation in its reflection.

Samba is a highly personal account by a journalist who takes us into the center of the carnival experience in Rio, seen from the point of view of a very poor neighborhood with a rich carnival tradition. Through this we learn worlds about Afro-Brazilian culture, the notion of "exotic" as often applied to the tropics, and about Ms. Guillermoprieto's fascinating way of understanding and relating, as a Mexican, to a powerful Latin tradition quite other than hers. While there are some problems of organization, this is a very informative book, but mostly I found it fun, and it made me want to be in Rio and to dance.

If you are interested in learning the true roots of Samba and Brazilian Carnaval(and not just the obligatory blurbs that you see in guidebooks), then this book is an absolute must for you to read. Alma Guillermoprieto does a superb job describing the rich religious, historical, and socioeconomic roots of Brazilian Carnaval and Samba - both of which have become famous around the world, yet remain remarkably poorly understood.

Guillermoprieto writes in a very engaging, enjoyable style, which occassionally seems more like an engrossing novel than a non-fiction work. If you have ever been curious to learn more about Brazilian culture, this is the book to start with!

While Carnival in Brazil has become trendy for the elite white population and thousands of tourists, little has been written from an insider's view. Alma Guillermoprieto participated in Carnival not as a wealthy outsider, but as a local in Rio's slums. She spent four months living with hardworking individuals who have little to eat or wear, but spend countless time, energy and what little money they have for the February holiday and events. One of the best views of Brazil from an outsider on the inside.

The title of the book "Samba" (either picked by the author or by the publisher for marketing purposes) is misleading. The book has nothing significant about Samba, music or dance. (For example, one of the very few Samba dance descriptions is of a couple coming from an affluent beach neighborhood to a rehearsal, where the male dancer kept rubbing his neck against the female dancer c...).
However, the book presents realistic life in a Rio favela and centered on preparations of one of the most famous samba schools for the carnival, from the point of view of a high class Mexican (American comparable) talented journalist. The author moved to live in a favela for short periods, with a luxury apartment and maid in the rich part of the city to escape to frequently. The result is one of a few books that describe life of the lowest Brazilian class in a Rio favela. The misery, drug culture, fatalism, lawlessness, male dominance, and the joy of the preparations for the few happy days of the year during the carnival, which the author followed through, until the last minute before the climax, the parade that she could only see briefly from afar but not participate, due to what appears to be a nervous breakdown.

As a student who had to read this book for a class and think critically about it in terms of Anthropology and race, this book was a pain to sludge through. The writer's style is very ambiguous and confusing at times. With that said I did like the topic but I believe there are better books out there. I have no idea how to analyze this book for an essay!

In my opinion, the author is an outsider who never really gets fully inside Mangueira and the cultural context of the samba school (escola de samba). She is definitely a "gringa" who has much to learn and misinterprets much of what she sees. But the worst part of the book I think is her horrible reporting on "samba" itself -- the music, the dance and the history of the genre. She doesn't know what she's talking about, and even at one point reports that all the Brazilian idioms with a 2/4 meter are variations of the same thing! Please....

"Samba" is a pretty good read, but evidentally the author only spent a short time in Brazil doing her research. It's very superficial in terms of cultural and racial issues. And its musical analysis is WAY off the mark. She knows nothing about samba. There are much better books out there about samba and Brazilian music.